This invention concerns a method for the treatment of amoebiasis, comprising administering yeast of the genus Saccharomyces.
Amoebiasis is a parasitic infectious disease due to a protozoan agent, Entamoeba histolytica or dysenteric amoeba. It is observed throughout the world, especially in hot humid areas, and particularly in tropical countries that represent the elective area of the amoebic endemia. However, amoebiasis is not unusual even in temperate climates, particularly because of the present large-scale mixing of populations.
The more common form of this disease is intestinal amoebiasis which expresses itself in two different manners:
amoebic dysentery, which expresses itself in severe abdominal pain, frequent stools comprising glairs and blood, with a tendency to chronicity; and
chronic amoebic colitis, more usually found in temperate climates, which expresses particularly in a chronic diarrhea with frequent alternate spells of constipation and of a great variety of disorders (such as gastric or hepatic-biliary dyspepsia, neuro-vegetative manifestations and the like), which may last for years even after the amoebae have disappeared.
Amoebae may also attack the liver, and, more seldom, the lungs, so that amoebic hepatitis is a severe form of the disease,
Amoebiasis is essentially treated by administration of amoebicides, most of which are quinoline or arsenic derivatives, which are not well tolerated. The nitroimidazoles are effective on tissulary amoebiasis but have insufficient activity on intestinal forms of the disease. In addition, prophylaxis of amoebiasis can hardly be carried out since the de-parasitization of the familiars affected is little effective. Therefore, it would be desirable that a sparingly noxious, easy to use amoebicidal agent be made available.
It is also known that yeasts of the genus Saccharomyces, such as Saccharomyces boulardii and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been used for a long time in the prevention and the treatment of disorders of the gastro-intestinal tract, particularly diarrhoea or colitis associated with the intake of antibiotics. Such yeasts are generally administered orally, as capsules containing 0.050-0.200 g active ingredient, the daily dosage regimen being usually comprised between 0.100 and 0.400 g for adults.
It has now been found that yeasts of the genus Saccharomyces, particularly Saccharomyces boulardii, significantly reduce the effect and severity of amoebiasis in rodents, particularly in young rats, whose coacal amoebiasis is recognized as an experimental model of that of the human colon (WOOLFE G., Experimental Chemotherapy vol. 1, ed. R. L. Schnitzer and H. Hawking, 1963, Acad. Press, 422-443).